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Hi! I'm Andrea and I live and play in Colorado. A few things about me: I work in the Craft Beer Industry, I'm a recovering cardio addict and a beginner lifter, and I love food (and beer, clearly). This is my space to chat about all those things so grab a snack or a cool one (or both) and join in.

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Review: Dsolv Lawn Bags

Okay, by the title of this post you might be thinking, “Andrea, what is this? I don’t think that’s food.” And you’d be right, it isn’t food! But it is a product that is green and made for the home. Plus it’s made right here in Ohio, therefore I had to talk about it!

Andrea, who works with dSolv, contacted me asking if I would like to try out these lawn care bags and I immediately jumped at the chance!

If you live in an apartment or a place where your yard work is maintained for you, this will be of no interest. But if you have a yard where you are responsible for its maintenance, then you’ll want to read on.

Most of us are probably used to dealing with those huge paper lawn care bags, right? They hold grass and other lawn debris and each week we dutifully set them out by the curb to be picked up on trash day. The dSolv bags are meant to be replacements for the paper lawn bags.

The dSolv bags are made from corn and other plants to form a starch compound that is entirely compostable. Andrea sent me the starter kit which contained:

The dSolv sleeve

Mesh bags

Handle for carrying the loaded bags

We’ve been having amazing weather here in Columbus this week and Scott and I decided to take advantage of it and finish up the last of the yard work. It was time to get the yard prepped for winter, which involved raking leaves, pulling up dead plants, and one last mow. One person is supposed to be able to handle getting the bag ready to be filled and I took on the challenge.

You have to put the sleeve inside the mesh bag. I already opened the sleeve so I had to collapse it again. That was alright but I couldn’t get the snaps to shut, so I had to have Scott help me. Yes I realize my outfit is a tad funky but doing yard work in the winter doesn’t really scream high-fashion, ya know?

Once the sleeve was collapsed again, I was able to slide it into the mesh bag and adjust it so I could open it again.

Opening the sleeve by releasing the snaps on the sides.

Ah I did it! Though I did need Scott’s help again with the snaps. It was a little awkward for me to manage on my own but I think that’s due to my first time use of the product as opposed to a design fault of product. With some practice I would be able to put this together in no time flat.

I went around pulling up dead plants and tossing them in the bag. The mesh lawn bag is a really fine mesh that expands as it gets full. It is very lightweight but also extremely sturdy. More so than you would initially think. I did have to keep an eye on it so that it wouldn’t topple over from being unbalanced but that really wasn’t a big deal. It didn’t distract from my task or from using the bag.

Once the bag reaches a certain level of fullness it did become a little awkward to carry around and use. The mesh bag is longer than the sleeve which left me wanting to fill it more with debris but with the sleeve only covering so much that became a tad difficult. Once the sleeve starts to slide out, there’s no stopping it and it will continue to progress on out of the mesh bag.

I was able to fit all the dead plants and weeds in one bag. I tied a knot in the top and carried it to the driveway. I didn’t use the handle because I didn’t have much space at the top of the bag. If there were compostable twisty-ties, I think they would work really well here!

At the top of each bag is a green tag to indicate that these bags are compostable and that the lawn service people are allowed to take them. On the bag I used the tag fell off and I had to reattached it. From carrying the mesh bag on the side, I did create a small hole by stretching out the mesh this however did not result in any spillage of debris or weaken the structure of the bag at all.

Cons and Pros list:

Cons:

Does take some getting used to.

The sleeve can slip out of the bag easily.

Twisty-ties would be a great addition, instead of having to tie at knot at the top.

Pros:

Lightweight, even when full.

Perfect for plant, weed, and leaf debris.

Mesh bag so if it gets rained on, it won’t hold water.

In Summary:

Normally I tote a large trashcan around with me as I’m doing yard work. It’s easy to move around plus I can store some yard tools on it. With these mesh bags, I can’t store yard tools because it makes the bag heavy on one side. That’s really not a huge issue though. These mesh bags work great for lawn debris. I’m not sure if the mesh is small enough to handle grass clippings but it certainly can handle everything else.

The huge bonus to these bags, aside from being compostable, is the fact that they are mesh. If it rains, the contents will dry out quickly. With paper lawn bags, the contents won’t dry out and the paper runs the risk of falling apart from being wet. The mesh bags are also a lot smaller and compact than lawn bags thus making them lighter for the trash guys.

I had questioned whether our trash men would pick up the bag and they did without issue. Whew!

Would I use these bags again? Definitely for handling weeds, plants, and tree trimmings.

I think a great place for these to be used would be community gardens or clean-up projects. They are light and compact for travel, plus they would be easy to hand out to volunteers. Just a suggestion!

Give dSolv a look and see if there is a retailer located near you! Even more incentive, some of the profits from this product are donated to maintain local parks in the areas where dSolv is sold.

Disclaimer: I was contacted to test out this product and the product was sent to me for free. I was not compensated in anyway for this review and my experience, thoughts, and opinions are my own.